Building A Web-based University Archive Sharon Yang (yangs@rider.edu) Rider University and Robert J.Congleton (rcongleton@rider.edu)

Introduction 1. Problems with Accessing Archives A. Traditional problems with Accessing Archive Material 1. Material is not usually cataloged or available online 2. Access to material is restricted 3. Most inhouse databases have limited search ability and are dependent on what information has been included in the record. B. Problems with the two Access Databases used in Rider’s Archives 1. Having two different databases is a problem by itself.

Problems with First Access Database: 10,100 items, first six columns (14 total columns) What is this communiqué? Wrong document title To what does “status” refer?

Problems with first Access Database: last six columns No Date Acknowledged information Many records have no location information

Problems with 2nd Access Database, 1650 items, first five columns (thirteen columns overall) No details about the lectures in this series Not an archive item

Problems with 2nd Access Database, 1650 items, last eight columns More items have location information, but many have no box no. This item is actually in a different Special Collection, and is not archival

Summary of problems with Rider’s two Access Databases Not easy to use by Archives staff Not available to the public Limited search ability Contained many errors or blank fields Links to digitized images were not available

We needed a better database for the Archives

A Web-based Archive On the Internet and web-based Searchable Links to images or text Data import capability Easy to learn and use by staff

Links SQL Latest version 3.0.4 release July 2005 Front end – A Perl script Back end – MySQL Visit www.gossamer-threads.com for more information about this program

Perl Scripts Most popular web programming language Runs in Operating systems such as Unix and Windows and others Free or open source under GNU General Public License (GPL) Visit Perl web site at www.perl.org

MySQL Free database management tool under free software/open source GNU General Public License (GPL) Latest release MySQL 5.0 Visit www.mysql.org or www.mysql.com

Links SQL Life Long Support and Upgrade Admin Panel and Web-Based Interface Can Handle Images Well Searchable on the Web

Requirements to Run Links SQL A Unix or Windows Server (or any other OS that can run CGI scripts) A Web Server such as Apache Software Links SQL A Database Management tool such as MySQL or Oracle

Review of Links Admin Panel This is where data entry takes place for editing or adding items to the archives database. http://abaris.rider.edu/cgi-bin/Links/admin/admin.cgi

Moving the Archives to Links Exporting the two Access Databases into Links Merging the two databases Exporting information to MySQL code Locating problem records that needed to be corrected or deleted Creating fields in Links Importing the information to Links

Merging the Access Databases, with assistance from Dave Capuano Task accomplished by creating a new Access database Adding fields to the new database Adding fields to the two old databases so that each database has the same number of fields in the same order, 15 columns in all. Exporting old databases to MySQL format Importing the two databases, one at a time, into the new database by mapping fields of old databases to the fields of the new database.

Mapping Access fields in old databases

Exporting to Links SQL Export data from new Access database to MySQL format Remove Microsoft coding from the file Create new fields in Links to be used for Archive database Import into Links SQL mapping information to new fields.

Exported MySQL data extracted by R.Congleton and D. Capuano

Default Fields in Links

Fields We added to Links

Mapping Fields to Links using Links MySQL import module

Access Database 1 record

New Archives Database Record, Revised Record from old Database

New Archives Database Record, public view

Additional Collections now in Links Historic Business Machines. This collection consists of historic typewriters, adding machines and computers used in offices during the last 140 years. Typewriters were photographed with a digital camera. The digital images were then linked to the Archive database in Links. Live demonstration http://library.rider.edu/

Building a Web-Based Archive Good-Bye and Thank You. Any Questions?????